BP chief says targeting gas could hurt efforts to lower carbon emissions

BP’s chief executive said the anti fossil-fuel movement is targeting gas, as well as coal and oil, which could hinder the world’s ambitions to reduce carbon emissions and prevent climate change.

“One of my concerns is that gas is being increasingly marginalised. Even vilified, and demonised,” Bob Dudley told an industry conference in London on Wednesday.

Mr Dudley, who will hand over to his successor Bernard Looney in February, said gas has a “vital role” to play in any transition towards cleaner fuels, helping to meet energy demand.

Switching from coal to gas has cut more than 500m tons of carbon dioxide this decade alone, Mr Dudley said. “That’s a gain made precisely because gas emits half the carbon of coal when burned for power. That’s why gas is so important.”

While gas is cleaner than oil and coal it is still a fossil fuel and has come under attack by environmentalists who are calling for a rapid shift to renewable energy to prevent global warming.

Gas advocates say the fuel will be essential to guarantee reliability of power supply as wind does not blow all the time and the sun does not always shine. It will also be essential as the world will still be dependent on hydrocarbons for decades to come.

“To exclude gas — when so much is at stake — is to take a huge and unnecessary risk,” said Mr Dudley. He added that gas is abundant, affordable and an “efficient store of energy, in a way that batteries can’t replicate”.

Yet methane is the main component of natural gas and it is released into the atmosphere during oil or gas production by incomplete flaring or leaks in pipelines. Even though it breaks down faster than carbon dioxide, it is a bigger contributor to global warming.

“Methane leaks and flaring can and must be tackled. And gas itself can and must be increasingly decarbonised,” said Mr Dudley, who said that there should be government regulation of methane.

But energy majors have been criticised for staying members of industry lobby groups that supported the Trump administration’s continued rollback of US regulations and a push to remove limits on methane emissions.